★Holuzam
I
João Almeida (trumpet) and Pedro Melo Alves (drums), two of the most creative and prolific Portuguese jazz musicians of their generation, are Mooris. Recorded in May 2021, right after the second lockdown in Portugal, “I” shows them freely exploring their instruments of choice but also finding and creating sound with “objects”, as they describe. Both musicians leave behind familiar ground and use their instruments to create sounds that appear ceremonial or even manifest themselves as rituals. “+”…
Incorporeal
Burnt down utopias and urban paranoia, Hidden Horse are back with their second album. “Incorporeal” is the follow-up to 2022’s “Opala” and the band’s first release on vinyl. Composed by João Kyron (keyboards/electronics) and Tony Watts (drums), long-time friends and collaborators on different projects, the most prominent one being the exotic and dreamy Beautify Junkyards (Ghost Box). As a duo they’re a totally different game.
Playing live regularly after the release of “Opala” offered them the p…
It's Full Of Stars / Paisagens
*100 copies limited edition* Rua in Space. In the fields? These are two complementary works, they intertwine and dance together as one. "It's Full Of Stars" (2020) and "Paisagens" (2021) may suggest the heightened ambient world we experienced during the lockdowns, but they neither revisit those times nor they aim to comment on them. What was, was. Because of that fact some of the tracks are the result of generative music, the flow respects its own rhythm, its own timeline, paralleled perhaps onl…
Improvisações Cristalizadas
*300 copies limited edition* Unreleased but perfectly formed "hidden" album, recorded in 1989-90 by Nuno Rebelo on the wake of his "Sagração Do Mês De Maio" double LP (composed in 1988 as soundtrack to the third Manobras de Maio fashion event in Lisbon). The tracks convey a sense of investigative curiosity regarding computer composition and they sound wonderfully artificial. Titles as "Moon OK", "Tiny Space Ships" or "Dança Das Creaturas Elásticas" ("Elastic Creatures Dance") embody this idea of…
Quaternity
**In process of stocking. 200 copies** Everything surrounding Brace looks simple and clear. The name, Brace, five letters, one syllable. The title of their debut album, “Quaternity”, refers to the four pieces in it. Even the straightforwardness of the song-titles leaves no room for doubt. The Bristol duo featuring Ollie Moore (reeds/keyboards) and Aidan Searle (drums/percussion) know what it is doing: plain free jazz born of instant composition. Moore has been around for a while, an active playe…
Play Off
*In process of stocking* Play Off is the new record by the composer Vasco Mendonça, performed by Drumming GP and edited by Holuzam. Resulting from the accomplice creative partnership between Vasco Mendonça and the ensemble led by Miquel Bernat, all the works on this disc (which includes an unusual piece for countertenor and percussion, from poems by Terrance Hayes and Tracy K. Smith) are commissions from the group to the composer, under the Composer in Residence programme in 2019/2020.
At this l…
Ripples On The Surface
*In process of stocking* Releasing music since 2006, Tiago Sousa is one of most talented and heartfelt pianists of his generation. His compositions are soulful, generous, and mindful. He has released records on Immune, Discrepant and for years oversaw Merzbau, a visionary Portuguese label that inspired many in the mid-2000s. After years of flirting, we are very happy to announce Tiago's first release on Holuzam, “Ripples On The Surface”.
The opener “Sunflowers” sits close to Steve Reich – “Music…
Cavalcante
*Limited edition of 300 copies.* In recent years ambient music has changed and encountering Jon Hassell's fourth world design has become easy. Most of the time there’s no feeling, no narrative, a nothingness of ideas through layers and layers of pastiche and boring bedroom music. This is not bashing. Just a reminder that sometimes the information trap delays an understanding of how good music really is. “Cavalcante” is the new release by funcionário (born Pedro Tavares). You’ll find Jon Hassell …
Aether
Over the course of two nights, a few weeks before the pandemic arrived in Portugal, André Gonçalves (ADDAC System) and Casper Clausen (Efterklang) recorded music from another realm, dreamy and scary at the same time, sounds complete but it seems to be falling apart at any moment. It is like an alien language or a way to process sound that sounds foreign because it is different from everything else, formally, and aesthetically. This is “Aether”, 37 minutes of constant take-off. A departure from w…
Opala
**150 copies** The occult and folk music have been friends for a while. In the 21st century, hauntology and the resurface of some cult soundtracks from the 1970s and 1980s helped to create a new sense of folk, not associated with the typical acoustic feeling, but more relatable with library, krautrock/kosmische and industrial music. João Kyron and Tony Watts, long time collaborators since the late 1990s with their band Hipnótica, and more recently with Beautify Junkyards (Ghost Box) are well acq…
There's no knowing
**300 copies** Starting with an open dialogue seems like a good way to approach a collaboration. Almost a decade ago, that’s how Joana Gama (piano) and Luís Fernandes (electronics) started to work together, and both quickly understood that it was an ideal moment to develop and explore new paths in their music. “There’s no knowing” is their fifth album, 50 minute piece in which the two artists' have a dialogue while interacting with the void and silence around them. The origin of this work explai…
nolastingname
**100 copies** Unrest is a word that comes to mind listening to Maria da Rocha new instalment “nolastingname”. She’s been around for a few years, living between Lisbon, Berlin and Stockholm, releasing records with Maria W. Horn (“Pink”, 2015) or on her own (“Beetroot & Other Stories”, 2018). She studied classical music (violin) but her solo musical career steps away from it, putting her foot down on electronic and experimental music. “nolastingname” was recorded in Stockholm’s Elektronmusikstudi…
Os Princípios do Novo Homem
**100 copies** Out of the eight “Principles Of The New Man”, making up the play staged at Malaposta in October/November 2020, four are cut out for this independent soundtrack release. Precisely those which author and director Pedro Saavedra designated for distinct sound pieces. The remaining four are accompanied by The Background (“A Base”), a long, hypnotic, meditative and pulsating piece over which the listener is offered a chance of imaginative creation, just as in the play it assumes a backg…
Red Cross
**70 copies** A little bit more than a decade ago, we were introduced to the music of Filipe Felizardo. In all those years we’ve learned about his chameleon-like ability to adapt different states of mind and perception to the way he plays guitar. “Red Cross” is his last declared homage to the late John Fahey, but also a record representing all the imprisonments and liberties of living during a lockdown. The two tracks in this release exist in two different moments. “there’s an endness to it” is…
Liminal Movements
**150 copies** Since they started @c in 2000, Miguel Carvalhais and Pedro Tudela have been mainly focused on creating electronic computer music. Throughout the years they have developed their own language, mastered the sense of sound/sound-design in their pieces and have created a body of work that relates simultaneously with musique concrete, 90s electronic glitch music and early electronics. It does not necessarily sound like any of those genres but evokes them. “Liminal Movements” finds its o…
A Casa E Os Cães / Sabor A Terra
**120 copies** “Outros Cortes”, from “A Casa E Os Cães”, ends with some of the characters from the film whispering random phrases with a vague tone. It is fast and, at first, it sounds incomplete, interrupted. After a minute or so it becomes clear that those first impressions are wrong. The soundtrack for the film by Madalena Fragoso and Margarida Meneses is composed of fragments that create a sustained harmony. Polido explores the concept of a soundtrack, using and reusing sounds of the film to…
ZAMPLER001
**100 copies** We were about to release “Textures & Lines” (by Drumming GP, Joana Gama & Luís Fernandes) when the Covid-19 crisis hit Portugal hard. A tour had been organized around it and it was obviously cancelled, but we kept the street date anyway. On the same week we decided to try and not hold back any of our future releases, respecting our previous schedule as a way to support the artists we are working with, thinking about the current situation but also the unpredictable future. With tha…
Sun Oddly Quiet
**200 copies** Composed and performed by João Pais Filipe. Recorded and mixed by José Arantes. Mastered by Chris Hardman. Design by Proto Thanks to: Burnt Friedman, Carolina Bagulho, Diogo Rapazote, Joaquim Durães, José Arantes, Maria Mendes, Renato Cruz Santos, Nelson Gomes, André Santos and Flur team. This record is dedicated to my Grandmother Maria de Lurdes Gomes
Textures & Lines
"Textures & Lines" started as an invitation by Portuguese ensemble Drumming GP to work with the duo Joana Gama & Luís Fernandes. Joana's piano and Luís's electronics find new territories in a mix of subtle and raw use of percussions. In four pieces they defy the limits of classical contemporary music and create a landscape that evolves in each listening.Joana Gama - Piano, PercussionJoão Dias - PercussionJoão Miguel Braga Simões - PercussionLuis Fernandes - Electronics, PercussionMiquel Bernat -…
Olímpia
**150 copies** "Part of a long steady lineage of Portuguese romantics, Pedro Magina breaks a five-year hiatus after releases on Not Not Fun and Mental Groove. When we first heard these songs, we were mesmerized by their mellowness. Inspired by many changes in his life over the last few years, “Olímpia” is a straight to the heart record, mixing lounge atmospheres, Balearic heat and the blissful “I don’t give a shit feeling” about what’s happening out there. This is not a 2020 record. This is a fo…